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The Purpose of the Einsatzgruppen
The most succinct description of the purpose of the
Einsatzgruppen was given at the trial of Adolph Eichmann by Dr.
Michael Musmanno, Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who
presided over the trial of 23 of the leaders of the
Einsatzgruppen. He stated "The purpose of the Einsatzgruppen was
to murder Jews and deprive them of their property." SS General
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski confirmed this at the main Nuremberg
Trial when he testified that "The principal task [of the
Einsatzgruppen] was the annihilation of the Jews, gypsies, and
political commissars." (Taylor, Anatomy, p. 259)
The Einsatzgruppen were given orders directly by Himmler and
Heydrich on several occasions. There were at least two meetings
of the leaders of the Einsatzgruppen in June, 1941 in which they
were briefed as to their duties. In a third meeting, which
probably took place on June 22, 1941, Heydrich briefed the
commanders on the plans for their operations. Otto Ohlendorf,
commander of Einsatzgruppe D and a close associate of Himmler,
confirmed these orders when he testified at the Nuremberg Trial:
COL. AMEN: Did you have any other conversations
with Himmler concerning this Order?
OHLENDORF: Yes, in late summer of 1941 Himmler was
in Nikolaiev. He assembled the leaders and the men of
the Einsatzkommandos, repeated to them the liquidation
order, and pointed out that the leaders and men who
were taking part in the liquidation bore no
responsibility for the execution of this order. The
responsibility was his, alone, and the Fuhrer's.
COL. AMEN: And you yourself heard that said?
OHLENDORF: Yes.
Tracing the process by which the orders of the
Einsatzgruppen to eliminate the Jews in the captured territories
were developed is difficult. The process seems to have begun in
March, 1941, while the plans for Operation Barbarossa (the
invasion of the Soviet Union ordered by Hitler on December 18,
1940) were being made.
The decision to use units from the SD (security services) to
perform special political actions was made early in the planning
stages of the invasion. On March 13, 1941, Gen. Keitel, the
commander of the OKW, issued a supplement to Barbarossa which discussed
special tasks, independent of the military needs of the invasion, that
would be supervised by Himmler. Keitel wrote:
"In the theater of operations of the Army, the
Reichsfuehrer-SS has special assignments from the
Fuehrer for the preparation of the political
administration, which special assignments result from
the final and decisive struggle between two opposed
political systems. In the conduct of these
assignments, the Reichsfuehrer-SS acts independently
and on his own authority.
* * *
"At the beginning of the operations, the German-Soviet
Russian border is to be closed to non-military
personnel traffic, with the exception of the police
units to be deployed by the Reichsfuehrer-SS on order
of the Fuehrer."
"Hitlers Weisungen fuer die Kreigfuehrung"
[Hitler's Directives for the Conduct of the War],
edited by Walther Hubatsch, Deutscher Taschenbuch
Verlag, Frankfurt am main, 1962, pp. 102-3,
translation by Gord McFee.
The initial policy was orally communicated to the officers
of the Einsatzgruppen. They were later embodied in the
"Commissar Order" issued by Heydrich Himmler and never revoked.
(Harris, 241) The Commisar Order issued on July 17, 1941, called
for "the separation and further treatment of . . . . all Jews."
(TMWC IV 258-9)
The Composition of the Einsatzgruppen
There were approximately 600 to 1000 men in each
Einsatzgruppe, although many were support staff. The active
members of the Einsatzgruppen were drawn from various military
and non-military organizations of the Third Reich. The bulk of
the members were drawn from the Waffen-SS, the military arm of
the SS. In Einsatzgruppen A, for example, the breakdown of
active members was:
| Waffen-SS: | |
340 |
| Gestapo: | | 89 |
| SD (security service): | | 35 |
| Order Police: | | 133 |
| Kripo: | | 41 |
| (Taylor, Anatomy, p. 510.)
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Each of the Einsatzgruppen were further broken down into
operational subunits known as Einsatzkommandos or
Sonderkommandos.
The Victims of the Einsatzgruppen
The overwhelming proportion of the men, women, and children
murdered by the Einsatzgruppen were Jews. The Einsatzgruppen
also murdered Romany (gypsies), those identified as functionaries
of the Communist Party, those accused of defying the occupying
armies of the Third Reich, and those accused of being partisans
or guerilla fighters against the invading armies. In all cases
the murders were contrary to accepted law.
Although an exact figure will never be known, approximately
1,500,000 people were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen. The
Einsatzgruppen submitted detailed and specific reports of their
actions to their superiors both by radio and written
communication; these reports were checked against each other for
accuracy at Heydrich's headquarters. According to those reports
approximately 1,500,000 people were murdered. In evaluating this
large number Justice Michael Musmanno, who presided at the trial
of the Einsatzgruppen wrote:
One million human corpses is a concept too bizarre
and too fantastical for normal mental comprehension.
As suggested before, the mention of one million deaths
produces no shock at all commensurate with its enormity
because to the average brain one million is more a
symbol than a quantitative measure. However, if one
reads through the reports of the Einsatzgruppen and
observes the small numbers getting larger, climbing
into ten thousand, tens of thousands, a hundred
thousand and beyond, then one can at last believe that
this actually happened -- the cold-blooded,
premeditated killing of one million human beings.
The Best Evidence of the Crimes of the Einsatzgruppen
The reports of the Einsatzgruppen which report in detail
their murder and robbery are the best evidence that we have of
what the Einsatzgruppen did. When the U.S. Army captured the
headquarters of the Gestapo they found hundreds of written
reports from the Einsatzgruppen dispassionately listing their
activities. There are two kinds of reports in the collection.
"Activity and Situation Reports" (or "Situation Reports") were
monthly compilations of the activities of all of the
Einsatzgruppen. "Operational Situation Reports" (or "Operational
Reports") were detailed reports from the various units giving, in
precise detail, the number of murders committed and the property
stolen. These reports were sequentially numbered and all but one
of the Operational Situation Reports were found in the archives
of the Third Reich. The originals of these reports are currently
held by the German government in the archive at Coblentz where
they are available to researchers and historians.
These reports give us a complete picture of what the
Einsatzgruppen were doing and, since they were approved by the
highest authorities of the Third Reich, represent the best
evidence of the orders given to the Einsatzgruppen. The reports
are shocking both in their scope and the callous attitudes they
display towards mass murder. One of the judges hearing the
appeal in the Stelmokas case had a typical reaction to the
contents of one report: "Colonel Jaeger reports the executions of
thousands of Jews and hundreds of others in such an impersonal,
matter-of-fact-manner and with such pride that his account leaves
one in a horror-driven state of shock." (100 F.3rd 302, 325)
Additionally direct evidence was presented in two trials.
The first was the trial of Otto Ohlendorf, commander of
Einsatzgruppe D, and 22 other members of the SS charged with
responsibility for the crimes of the Einsatzgruppen. Justice
Michael Musmanno of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court presided at
the trial with legendary equity. He allowed the defendants every
leeway in presenting a defense to their actions. He found that
it was beyond a reasonable doubt that, based on the evidence
presented, that all of the defendants were guilty as charged.
Fourteen of the defendants were sentenced to death.
These Reports are Authentic
The authenticity of the Einsatzgruppen reports has never
been seriously challenged. The original copies of the reports
were found in the archives of the Gestapo when it was searched by
the U.S. Army. A complete set of those reports were introduced
at the trial of 23 members of the Einsatzgruppen. At this trial
witnesses who had created the reports and who had received them
testified. All stated that the reports were authentic and
accurate. Currently the originals of the reports are held by the
German archives at Coblentz where they are available to scholars
and historians for research. The U.S. National Archives, Yad
Vashem, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum have complete sets
of copies of the original documents.
At one point in the Einsatzgruppen Trial, for example, Otto
Ohlendorf, the commander of Einsatzgruppe D was asked about a
report (document L-180) created by Stahlecker the commander of
Einsatzgruppe A. He answered: "I have read the report of
Stahlecker concerning Einsatzgruppe A, in which Stahlecker
asserts that his group killed 135,000 Jews and Communists in the
first four months of the program. I know Stahlecker personally,
and I am of the opinion that the document is authentic."
One of the most important witnesses at the Einsatzgruppen
trials was Kurt Lindow who testified on July 21, 1947. Lindow
was the person responsible for receiving the reports as they came
in and distributed them. As he testified:
I read most of the reports and passed them on to
Dr. Knoblach, Inspector of the Criminal Police, who
compiled them at first. The compilation was published
daily under the title 'Operational Situation Reports -
U.S.S.R.' These reports were stenciled and I corrected
them. Afterwards they were mimeographed and
distributed. The originals of the reports which were
sent to the Reich Security Main Office [RHSA] were
mostly signed by the commander of the Einsatzgruppe or
his deputy. . . . . . .
On the strength of my positions as deputy chief
and later on chief of subdepartment IV A 1, I consider
myself a competent witness, able to confirm that the
'Operational Situation Reports -- U.S.S.R." which was
published by the chief of security police and the
security service under file marked IV A 1 were compiled
entirely from the original reports of the
Einsatzgruppen reaching my subdepartment by wireless or
by letter.
NMT Vol. IV, pp. 99-100.
In his testimony Lindow also verified that the reports in
evidence were authentic and that the initials on the reports were
those of his superiors. After his testimony the defendants in
the Einsatzgruppen trial stipulated to the authenticity of the
reports.
The reports have also been tested in other courts as well
and found to be authentic. The Jaeger Report, for example,
covers the murders committed Einsatzkommando 3 of Einsatzgruppe A
in Lithuania. It was recently used in the denaturalization trial
of Jonas Stelmokas in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania in 1995. Stelmokas was accused of being
an officer in a Lithuanian militia unit cooperating with
Einsatzgruppen A. After the challenges to the report by the
defense were considered, the Jaeger Report was found to be
authentic and reliable both by the trial court and an appellate
court which considered an appeal of the case. U.S. v. Stelmokas
100 F.3rd 302 (3rd. Cir.; 1996)
There Is Other Evidence As Well
Other than the evidence provided by the reports, there is
direct testimony from those who committed the crimes and some of
the bystanders who witnessed them. These witnesses testified at
two criminal trials held concerning the crimes of the
Einsatzgruppen. The first of these was the trial of Otto
Ohlendorf and 22 other defendants who commanded the
Einsatzgruppen in 1947. This was a trial before a Tribunal of
five judges at which the U.S. laws of evidence and substantive
law were applied. The second notable trial was of members of
Sonderkommando 4a (attached to Einsatzgruppe C) for 33,771
murders committed at Babi Yar on September 29-30, 1941. This
trial was held in Darmstadt pursuant to German law in 1967-8. In
both case the courts heard direct evidence of the crimes
committed and convicted the defendants.
The argument that these trials were "kangaroo courts" or
"show trials" is simply not tenable. Both were conducted with
scrupulous attention to the rights of the accused to a fair
trial. They were allowed to cross-examine the witnesses,
challenge documents, and present evidence on their own behalf
without limitation.
The attention that the courts gave to allowing the
defendants to present a full defense is best illustrated by a
famous incident at the trial of the leaders of the
Einsatzgruppen. At one point in the trial, the prosecution
objected to the argument that one of the defendants had been
forced into duty with an Einsatzgruppe. Justice Musmanno, the
presiding judge, overruled the objection stating:
The defense can introduce any evidence short of
describing the lives of the penguins in the Antarctic
and, if the defense can convince me the habits of the
penguins are relevant evidence to the case, then the
lives and times of those white-fronted creatures can also
be admitted as evidence.
After the trial before the U.S. Tribunal, as a token of
appreciation of the fair and honest manner in which their clients
had been treated, the defense attorneys presented Justice
Musmanno with a statue of a penguin. In subsequent trials, it
was always the request of the defense that the "penguin rule" be
applied. The penguin resided on a shelf behind Justice
Musmanno's desk until his death in 1968.
Despite the wide latitude given to them, at neither trial
did the defendants claim that the massacres did not happen
or challenge the authenticity of the reports. The defenses they
presented to the charges against them was that they
were forced into service with the Einsatzgruppen or, as did Otto
Ohlendorf, that they were just following orders. All were
convicted.
The Crimes of the Einsatzgruppen
As Justice Musmanno stated the Einsatzgruppen murdered over
well over a million men, women, and children and stole their
property. The only possible interpretation of the reports that
the Einsatzgruppen made to Heydrich is that the majority of those
men, women, and children were murdered and robbed because they
were Jewish. There is no other reason evident from the reports
or the defenses that were presented at the various trials.
One of the most notable of these reports is the "Jaeger
Report" which details the murders committed by Einsatzkommandos 8
and 3, attached to Einsatzgruppe A in the Vilna-Kaunas area of
Lithuania from July 4, 1941 through November 25, 1941. This
lengthy report describes the murder of over 130,000 people in
that short period of time. This report consists of six sheets
listing the murders of Einsatzkommandos 8 and 3 and concluding:
"Today I can confirm that our objective, to solve the Jewish
problem for Lithuania, has been achieved by EK 3. In Lithuania
there are no more Jews, apart from Jewish workers and their
families." Most of the report consists of entries such as:
| 29.10.41 | Kauen-F.IX |
2,007 Jews, 2,290 Jewesses,
4,273 Jewish children (mopping
up ghetto of superfluous Jews) |
| 3.11.41 | Lazdjai |
485 Jews, 511 Jewesses, 539
Jewish children |
| 15.11.41 | Wilkowski |
36 Jews, 48 Jewesses, 31
Jewish children |
| 25.11.41 | Kauen-F.IX |
1.159 Jews, 1,600 Jewesses,
175 Jewish children (resettlers
from Berlin, Munich, and
Frankfurt am main) |
| Jaeger report Sheet 5, which
contains 11 such entries. |
The reports also give detailed information about the money
and other valuables stolen from the victims. The scope of these
activities is illustrated by "Operational Report No. 73" dated
September 4, 1941 (NO-2844) and "Operational Report No. 133" dated
November 14, 1941 (NO-2825). Both of these reports describe the
activities of Einsatzkommando 8, a subunit of one of the
Einsatzgruppen. The first of these reports states "On the
occasion of a purge at Tsherwon 125,880 rubels were found on 139
liquidated Jews and were confiscated. This brings the total of
the money confiscated by Einsatzkommando 8 to 1,510,399 rubels."
Two months later the same sub-unit was able to report that they
had stolen an additional million rubels: "During the period
covered by this report, Einsatzkommando 8 confiscated a further
491,705 rubles as well as 15 gold rubles. They were entered into
the ledgers and passed to the Administration of Einsatzkommando
8. The total amount of rubels so far secured by Einsatzkommando
8 now amounts to 2,511,226 rubels."
Nor was this thievery limited to their victim's money.
Watches, jewelry and even clothing were even plundered. One
particularly callous act of murder was described by Justice
Musmanno in his decision:
One of the defendants related how during the
winter of 1941 he was ordered to obtain fur coats for
his men, and that since the Jews had so much winter
clothing, it would not matter so much to them if they
gave up a few fur coats. In describing the execution
which he attended, the defendant was asked whether the
victims were undressed before the execution, he
replied: "No, the clothing wasn't taken -- this was a
fur coat procurement operation."
Judgment, p. 36.
Other Participants
The Einsatzgruppen did not act alone. They had help. The
Einsatzgruppen could call on the Wehrmacht for assistance but far
more important were local militia groups willing to cooperate in
the massacres. At Babi Yar where 33,771 Jews were murdered on
September 29-30, 1941, there were two Ukrainian "kommandos"
assisting Sonderkommando 4a. In Lithuania Operational Report 19
(July 11, 1941) states that "We have retained approximately 205
Lithuanian partisans as a Sonderkommando, sustained them and
deployed them for executions as necessary even outside the area."
In the Ukraine the Einsatzgruppen frequently welcomed the
participation of local militia both because they needed the help
of these auxiliaries but because they hoped to involve the locals
in the pogrom they were conducting. (Operational Report 81, from
Einsatzkommando 6, September 12, 1941)
There are many known instances of these local militias
assisting the Einsatzgruppen. During the "Gross Aktion" of
October 28-29, 1941, at Kaunas in Lithuania during which 9,200
Jews were murdered, Lithuanian militia worked with the
Einsatzgruppen. (100 F.3rd at 308) Other examples are Zhitomir
on September 18, 1941, in the Ukraine where 3,145 Jews were
murdered with the assistance of Ukrainian militia (Operational
Report 106) and Korosten where Ukrainian militia rounded up 238
Jews for liquidation (Operational Report 80). At times
the assistance was more active. Operational Report 88, for
example, reports that on September 6, 1941, 1,107 Jewish adults
were shot while the Ukrainian militia unit assisting them
liquidated 561 Jewish children and youths.
In many cases the militia that assisted the Einsatzgruppen
were paid from the money and valuables stolen from the victims.
The Victims of the Murders Were Not Partisans
The reports and the testimony at the various trials tell us
that any claim the Einsatzgruppen were dealing with "partisans"
is a misrepresentation of history.
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski -- the SS general (his rank was
equivalent to the U.S. rank of lieutenant general) in charge of
all anti-partisan warfare on the eastern front -- was a witness
before the IMT at Nuremberg. Not only did he testify that the
purpose of the Einsatzgruppen was the "annihilation" of Jews,
Romany, and Communist political operatives but that the
Einsatzgruppen were not involved in antipartisan activity. When
asked which units were used for antipartisan activity, he
responded: "For antipartisan activities formations of the
Waffen-SS, of the Ordungspolizei [regular "order keeping"
police], and, above all, of the Wehrmacht were used." (Taylor,
Anatomy, p. 259) The reports of the Einsatzgruppen are consistent
with Bach-Zelewski's testimony. In most of the murder victims
are described by class and actions against partisans are
specifically described. In all cases "partisans" and
"Communists" are listed separately from "Jews."
Many of the reports detail the victims by age and sex. We
can see from these entries that a majority of the victims were
women and children. It is obvious that a report of the murder of
"2,007 Jews; 2,920 Jewesses, 4,273 Jewish children (mopping up
ghetto of superfluous Jews)" on October 29, 1941 or "1,159 Jews,
1,600 Jewesses, 175 Jewish children (resettlers from Berlin,
Munich, and Frankfurt am main)" [Jaeger Report; sheet 5] cannot
accurately be characterized as describing "partisans."
When put on trial for his life Otto Ohlendorf, Commander of
Einsatzgruppen D, did not use the excuse that the victims were
"partisans." Instead he gave the Court a far different
rationalization for the murder of the children:
I believe that it is very simple to explain, if
one starts with the fact that this order did not only
try to achieve a temporary security (for Germany) but
also a permanent security. For that reason, the
children were people who would grow up and surely,
being the children of parents who had been killed,
would constitute a danger no smaller than that of their
parents.
When he made this statement Ohlendorf was not speaking just
as an individual and a dedicated national socialist; he was
repeating the statements of his superior, Heinrich Himmler.
Himmler and Ohlendorf were close associates and, in fact, were
travelling together when they were captured after the collapse of
the Third Reich. In his famous speech to a gathering of SS
officers at Posen on October 6, 1943, Himmler made comments
remarkably similar to those of Ohlendorf:
We came to the question: what to do with the women
and children? I decided to find a clear solution here
as well. I did not consider myself justified to
exterminate the men -- that is, kill them or allow them
to be killed -- and allow the avengers of our sons and
grandsons in the form of their children to grow up.
The difficult resolve had to be taken to make this race
disappear from the earth.
(Translation by Gord McFee.)
Another problem with justifying the murders as actions
against "partisans" is that Jewish partisan movements did not
even exist in the most populous regions until the Einsatzgruppen
began murdering Jews. In Lithuania, for example, the Jaeger
Report covers the period from July 4, 1941 through November 25,
1941 including what is known as the "Gross Aktion" which was
conducted with the help of Lithuanian militia in October, 1941.
The Jewish resistance movement did not begin until December 31,
1941, with a manifesto promulgated by Abner Kovner. Prior to
that time, Jewish resistance was ruthlessly suppressed by the
Jewish leader, Jacob Gens, who went so far as to turn Yitzhak
Witenberg, the leading proponent of Jewish resistance, over to
the Gestapo. (Hilberg, PVB, page 180-1) Thus, Jewish resistance
in Lithuania was, in reality, a reaction to the murders of the
Einsatzgruppen.
The reactions of the Jews of Lithuania was not unique.
There were similar reactions in many parts of the Ukraine where
the majority of the Jews caught up in the German invasion of the
Soviet Union lived. In this region, for example, a German
inspector reported to the Chief of the Industrial Armament
Department:
The attitude of the Jewish population was anxious --
obliging from the beginning. They tried to avoid
everything that might displease the German
administration. That they hated the German
administration and army inwardly goes without saying
and cannot be surprising. However, there is no proof
that Jewry as a whole or even to a greater part was
implicated in acts of sabotage. Surely, there were
some terrorists or saboteurs among them just as among
the Ukrainians. But is cannot be said that the Jews as
such represented a danger to the German armed forces.
The output produced by Jews who, of course, were
prompted by nothing but the feeling of fear, were
satisfactory to the troops and the German
administration.
Exhibit 3257 PS (Einsatzgruppen Trial).
Finally it should be noted that "partisan" or "guerilla"
forces are, under the Hague Convention, to be treated as POWs.
Germany was signer of this Convention and the out-of-hand killing
of "partisans" is murder.
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